1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to multiple language support for an application.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, operating systems employ separate applications for different languages. For example, when an application is executed in two different operating systems supporting Korean and English, separate versions (Korean and English) are used.
For example, where an operating system “A” and an operating system “B” support a language “A” and a language “B,” respectively, operating system “A” must use an application “A” in language “A”, and operating system “B” must use an application “B” in language “B”. The operating systems “A” and “B” each include a set of functions to convey information on environmental variables required by the applications “A” and “B.”.
Accordingly, the applications “A” and “B” respectively request required environmental variables through the set of functions that the operating systems “A” and “B” supply, and receive responses to their requests. However, if the operating system and the application support different languages, the operating system cannot understand the environmental variables requested by the application; thus, there is a need to produce a separate application to support the same language as the operating system.
As described above, to use an application in another language, the application has to be produced differently according to the linguistic environment. In other words, with respect to source code of a concerned application, the text should be converted and complied in the language supported by the concerned operating system. The application needs to be rebuilt based on each language when converting the text of the application, and managed on a language basis. This makes it difficult to maintain the application, and it requires significant time and effort to maintain.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 12-181650 discloses a data processing apparatus capable of using a printer driver by copying resources for the languages of various countries through a recording medium or a communication line, and installing the linguistic resource corresponding to the language and the font selected by a user when installing the printer driver. However, it is difficult to apply this invention to all applications. Further, it discloses no solution to the problem caused when the operating system and the application are in different languages.